About Us

Vision

We seek to develop and maintain an engaging multicultural learning community that promotes the importance of diversity, social responsibility, ethical leadership, and education through health care, medical teaching, and research. We believe we can accomplish this vision by:

Holding each other accountable to constantly improve a culture of research, discovery, education, and patient care;

Creating an environment of teamwork where we depend on each other and work well together with mutual respect to achieve common goals;

Developing and implementing a comprehensive system of diversity education, workshops, and training opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and administrators with UASOM;

Connecting reflective, caring, and highly skilled practitioners and scholars who lead in their chosen professions to support diverse communities;

Collaborating with a range of constituents to effect change in local, national, and global communities;

Using best practices and innovative methods to leverage diversity and strengthen the pipeline of students aiming to become future physicians;

Continuously investing in technologies, tools, infrastructure, and people –the foundations of our success.

Goals

Provide a receptive climate and inclusive learning community, workspace, and campus environment for all students, faculty, staff, and administrators within the UASOM community.

Develop partnerships to aid in the overall recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented in medicine (URiM).

Advance multicultural awareness and understanding for success in the medical world by infusing local and global perspectives into curricular/co-curricular programming.

Increase awareness of social issues and taking action to improve and eliminate health inequalities in historically underserved communities.

Core Competencies

The UASOM Office of Diversity & Multicultural Affairs has identified Seven Core Competencies to guide the programs and services rendered to our students. Each competency represents a deep commitment to student and communal development in addition to our intentional development and use of resources to enhance the learning and achievement of all students and employees as the journey towards inclusiveness in teaching, research, service and outreach continues for the sake of both the intellectual, social, and professional development at UASOM.

Leadership Students will gain knowledge and demonstrate leadership skills that coincide with our mission and vision of diversity, social responsibility, ethical leadership and education in health care, medical teaching, and research.

Innovation We continuously research and explore best practices to deliver original and imaginative approaches to ODMA programming.

Inclusive Excellence We believe that our work is not just germane to our office. The inherent responsibility of diversity and inclusion is a communal one because it represents the UASOM brand to the world. Therefore, as we continuously support and grow the ODMA mission at UASOM we continue to invite, include, consider, and invest in the individual and collective ideas, energy, and resources by people at all academic and administrative levels, across all functions and operations, and across the campus.

Identity Development Through programming, students will explore how other cultures and subcultures function in society. A significant part of such learning will address biases, misconceptions, preconceived notions, and stereotypes.

Student Advocacy We aim to continuously assist our students during their UASOM matriculation by providing personal, academic, professional, and financial support.

Outcomes and Accountability We continue to commit ourselves to an ongoing process of assessment to determine our effectiveness in support of ODMA mission and values. We do so by creating measurable objectives, identifying outcomes and benchmarks, communicating the results of our efforts against those benchmarks, and continuously seeking ways to improve based on those measures.

Transformation through Self-Examination As advocates and leaders, we hold a responsibility to challenge our own traditional ways of thinking and knowing to expand our horizons. This means confronting our personal, academic, and institutional biases and belief systems head-on through difficult dialogues and engaging programs.